Resident Evil Requiem is now and likely will, forever, be in the forefront of my mind. I’d set my hopes so high I really didn’t think Capcom could manage the monumental task of meeting them, and yet here we are with the best modern RE game yet. I feel truly spoilt.
As you can probably tell from my Resident Evil Requiem review, I loved pretty much everything: the action, puzzles, and even the horror. But even with all the motorbike chases and Chunk showdowns there’s still one part of Requiem that gets on my nerves, and it’s right at the end.
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After making your way through a decimated Raccoon City, chopping through Plant 42, and navigating ARK, yet another underground Umbrella facility, you finally come to the end game where you as Grace get the option to either release or destroy Elpis. The catch being Zeno only promises to spare Leon if you release it.
After absolutely no internal deliberation, I decided to hell with it, the world can burn, I’m saving Leon. Luckily, that was the right choice, as Elpis was not a virus but a cure—something the game hints at prior to the end. You don’t just spare Leon from getting a bullet to the head, but also cure his infection and save Sherry and Emily, alongside countless other Umbrella test subjects I’m sure.
This ending also gives you an extra boss fight against a Victor Gideon in Nemesis form, after which Leon and Grace get out of ARK and the BSAA save the day, and there’s even a post-credit scene. All’s well that ends well. Needless to say, this is the good and also canon ending.
Alternatively, if you choose not to release Elpis, Leon dies, ARK collapses, and things go so badly the game even asks you whether you want to take another shot at your decision. It’s pretty clear that this is the wrong choice.
But if it’s so bad, and clearly not canon, why add it? I’ve since come to terms with the bad ending by simply playing it off as a failed skill check, or something of less significance, but the most frustrating part of it all is that it’s given me war flashbacks to Resident Evil 7’s end choice, and by god did I hate that.
Spoiler: At the end of the house section of Resident Evil 7, before you get on the wrecked ship, Ethan gets a choice. Save Mia, his girlfriend and the reason he came all the way out to a remote house in Louisiana, with the anti-mould serum. Or you can save Zoe with said serum, the last survivor of the Baker family and someone who actually helped you get through some tough spots while in the house.
I chose Zoe. I know that wasn’t what the game wanted me to do, but I’d had enough of Mia. She’d lied, implicated Ethan in this mess, and then acted like a liability throughout the whole game. I did not appreciate getting an axe embedded in my chest. Unfortunately, that triggered the game’s non-canon ending. Zoe gets calcified and killed by Eveline, and Mia dies from the infection.
I was happy enough with my decision but to my horror, Mia was waiting for me at the opening of Resident Evil 8. She was back, and my valiant effort to cut the toxicity out of Ethan’s life came to absolutely nothing.
Luckily, Requiem’s end choice didn’t give me anywhere near as much whiplash as Mia did in RE8, perhaps that’s because it had prepared me for this moment. But still, let’s not even joke about killing Leon, even in the bad non-canon ending.
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